


Beacon Academy of Music

by The_Mad_Hero_of_Time



Category: RWBY
Genre: AU, Alcohol, F/F, F/M, Music, Sexual Content, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-07-14 09:46:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7166195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Mad_Hero_of_Time/pseuds/The_Mad_Hero_of_Time
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Kingdom of Vale, music is something that is valued so highly that it is considered THE cornerstone of its culture. With that in mind, an academy has been recently been opened with the focus of teaching the kingdom's youth to express themselves through this medium, the Beacon Academy. This tale follows the exploits of two music groups that formed in this unique school, JNPR and RWBY, amd their rise to super-stardom, or maybe their spiral downward into failure and obscurity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Crocea Mors

**Author's Note:**

> I have had this concept stuck in my head for about two weeks now, so I finally decided to try and put some of it down somewhere. I can't promise regular updates, just like my other stories. This is all going to come out as I think about it. That being said, I already have a definite end in mind as well as key story points throughout, it's only a matter of getting to it.  
> (I am in no way affiliated with RWBY in any way, shape, or form. The same goes for Roosterteeth. They are both a owned by their respective owners.)  
> I hope you enjoy the first chapter of my little pet project.

The bus rolled over a deep pothole with the back left tire, bucking the whole section of people hard into the air a couple of inches. Jaune caught the worst of the patrons; he had been yawning as the incident occurred and the impact caused him to bite down on his unsuspecting tongue. Hard.

_Fuck,_ he swore to himself, as his mouth with incapable of working at the moment. To try and subside the painful sensation, he clenched his mouth as tight as it would go and wrapped his free hand hard around his maw. It didn’t do very much, but it was better than nothing. While trying to keep from screaming with his right hand, his left was busy holding his guitar case in its vertical position so it wouldn’t bounce around on the bus’s floor. He would have laid it in his seat or even the seat across the aisle. But lucky him, every seat was filled on the bus; some people who knew each other had even opted to sitting on one another’s laps. He spied one couple about his age who had done just that. An energetic little redhead who couldn’t seem to sit still on her boyfriend’s lap and a taller, black-haired young man who seemed to be a perpetual state of rolling his eyes.

Jaune chuckled through his pain. _Must be nice to have something like that,_ he contemplated. Of course, he could only speculate what the guy was thinking since he himself had not any “real” experience in the matter. The only thing he ever knew about relationships was what he heard through his seven older sisters, and their perspective wasn’t always the clearest or even coherent on the matter. The way men in the dating world had been portrayed by his feminine siblings seemed to make him think that the male populous was inherently stupid and at fault for everything, and because of that instruction Jaune had never even dipped his toe in the dating world for fear of becoming like  those “stupid boys.”

In the midst of his childhood reminiscence, he was interrupted by a hard stop on the bus’s part at a fast stoplight. The sudden jarring motion caused Jaune to lurch forward in his seat and, as his old man would say, “eat shit” on the seat in front of him, or he would have the seat back hadn’t been so low that he head-butted the person in front of him.

“Ow!” Jaune grunted through his teeth.

“Son of a bitch!” exclaimed the woman in front of him.

The young musician held his head in his left hand and waited for his vision to clear back up so he might apologize properly. After a moment, he regained his full sight so he could see that completely irate young woman who had been staring back at him complete, vengeful contempt.

“Heh heh heh,” Jaune laughed nervously. He always did that when he was in a position that most would find undesirable. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on. Did I hurt you at all, miss?”

The young woman squinted hard at him, still refusing to utter a word. It was in this moment that Jaune was able to actually get a decent look at her. The first things that he noticed were her eyes: they were pale, almost silver. He couldn’t really tell, but in the back of his mind he had begun to wonder if she was actually blind. With that in mind, he started to look at the rest of her face and he noticed her hair: it was jet black and was colored with fading in and out streaks of red. He thought it was actually really cool that she was able to do that; he never could get dye to stay in his hair for very long, no matter how hard his sisters tried to make him go pink.

Jaune suddenly snapped back to reality and realized that he had started to stare off into space while the maybe-blind girl had continued to glare at him. That feeling of anxiety which had plagued him for the past few moments had transformed into an entirely new beast, horror.

“Um,” Jaune tried to speak again, but his tongue somehow caught in his throat. _Why?_ He thought. _I was just able to talk. Speak. Fucking speak, Jaune!_

The young woman took a deep breath as if she was charging up for some sort of ultimate attack of verbal abuse. Instead, she exhaled slowly, her cool, minty breath smacking Jaune in the face and disorienting him for a split second. He ever so recent stare of death had completely dissipated as she finished breathing out and was replaced by a completely innocent, possibly even cute, smile.

“No, I’m fine, thank you,” the lady replied. Her voice caught Jaune off guard. It was almost impossibly sweet, like one’s eardrum would get a cavity if he or she listened to her for too long. “Did you get hurt, though?” she asked. “I’ve been told that I’m hard-headed, so I’d hate to have to cover your hospital bills if you cracked your skull on mine.” She started to chuckle at her own little joke, causing Jaune to laugh in response.

The girl completely turned around in her seat and extended her hand toward Jaune. “I’m Ruby. It’s nice to meet you.”

Jaune hesitated for less than a fraction of a second, but he still shook her hand, albeit awkwardly because of how the two were positioned. “A pleasure, Ruby. My name is Jaune Arc.” His sisters had beaten manners into him since he was a little boy to the point where it was almost instinctual. Even with their little provided space, Jaune made the effort of bow his head forward after shaking Ruby’s hand.

The two of them chatted back and forth for a little bit about inane things like the weather and things of the like. During which, Jaune decided to do some more exploring with his eyes to see if he could deduce what she was up to. Unfortunately, she had nothing with her except for her clothes. No purse, not case, nothing. Her clothes were rather interesting, though: it was a black dress with long sleeves that flowed down into a skirt, each opening having red frills flowing from them. She had on black tights that went down to black and red biker boots which looked ready to drop an unsuspecting opponent. The strangest part of her attire was definitely her cape. Yes, a cape. A red cape that connected to her dress and even had a hood that looked big enough to swallow her entire head.

Unsatisfied with his inability to figure out her deal, he decided to ask her right out. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he started, “Can I ask where you are going today dressed as you are?”

“What do you mean?” Ruby asked, honesty confused.

“Well, I mean,” Why was he having trouble getting this out? Was he afraid of offending her and losing his first and potentially only friend in his new life? _No, that’s stupid,_ Jaune thought. _Sackj up and ask the stupid question._ “You don’t exactly look like a normal person, y’know? You got the cape and the boots; it just looks a bit odd for everyday life. So, where are you going?”

There was a long silence between the new acquaintances, long enough which made Jaune start to think that he had said the complete wrong thing. Just when he was about to apologize, Ruby responded…

“No, I mean, what do you mean, ‘where are you going?’ this is the shuttle to Beacon Music Academy, isn’t it?”

Jaune had completely frozen. She was right, this _was_ the shuttle to Beacon. This wasn’t the normal bus he used to travel on; this had a specific destination, a destination that Jaune had been freaking out about going to for nearly two months now. How could he have forgotten all about that? His face had gone beet red and he could feel his body temperature rise at an alarming rate. The embarrassment was getting to him. He started to feel nauseous, his head felt off center, and he felt like letting a tear shed.

Suddenly, Ruby turned her attention away from Jaune. “Look!” she exclaimed, “there’s Beacon!” she pointed to a giant castle-like structure that the bus had been rapidly approaching for the last few minutes.

The bus pulled into the main courtyard for the incoming students to disembark. Before anyone of them could stand and step into the aisle, Jaune shot up from his seat and practically jumped out of the shuttle. He made a beeline for the nearest trashcan, leaned over, and proceeded to empty his entire breakfast and last night’s dinner into it. The embarrassment of his conversation with Ruby had caused him to have the need to hurl, and the embarrassment of hurling in front of all of his new classmates just compounded the feeling, and Jaune continued to vomit until he started to violently dry-heave continuously.

Back on the shuttle, Ruby watched with a mixture of horror and amusement on her face as she watched her new friend leap out of the bus and lose his lunch over and over again in front of everyone. She wanted to go and comfort him, but people had begun to get off the bus, and she was stuck there until an opening presented itself.

While she waited for her turn, Ruby turned back to Jaune’s seat and noticed that he had left all of his stuff which Ruby could totally understand. _After all,_ she thought, _who remembers and book bag when they’re about to ralph in front of the entire school? Hehe, Ralph._ Ruby decided it would be best to grab his stuff for fear of it getting left behind and taken back to town. She lugged her friend’s backpack on top of her own after she drew it from under her seat and prepared to get off the shuttle. Then, a little feeling hit her; she couldn’t describe it, but she felt like she still had something to do on that shuttle, so she began to look around for an answer to her reason for staying. Just as she was about to give up and get off the bus, she caught something out of the corner of her eye: a hard-leather guitar case that had somehow slid back a seat from Jaune’s sitting place. She picked it up and inspected it, making sure it wasn’t too banged up, while doing so, she came across some wording at the top of the neck of the case.

“Crocea Mors,” Ruby read aloud. _That’s a weird name. I wonder what it means._ Ruby didn’t dwell on the strange name to long and then debarked from the shuttle.

On the other side of the Academy’s campus a limousine pulled up to the back doors. Pyrrha Nikos looked at the gigantic school through a heavily tinted window. The grip of anxiety clutched onto her heart with no intention of letting go anytime soon.

“Are you sure about this?” her father, who was sat at the opposite end of the limousine, asked. “Don’t you want people to see you arrive?”

Pyrrha shook her head. “No, father. I’d rather get out here. I don’t want people to see me get out of a limo. It just isn’t me.” She smiled at her father. “Thanks, for the ride, though. I’ll make sure to send you and Mom an email to let you know what’s all going on.”

“That sounds fine, dear,” her father replied with all the emotion of a dead fish. “Now, go have a great first day honey and make us proud!”

Pyrrha grabbed her guitar and stepped out of the limousine. The fancy car pulled away the instant her door closed and sped around the corner until Pyrrha was completely alone at the back entrance of the Beacon Academy of Music. The young prodigy took her first steps toward the building, making sure to be conscious of every foot placement so she wouldn’t stumble into the building.

She finally arrived at the doors after what seemed like an eternity. She set her guitar case against the wall. Pyrrha laid a hand on the hand and gave it a tug. It didn’t budge.

The back doors were locked.

Pyrrha hung her head in defeat. _Of course,_ she thought. _Why can’t anything be easy?_ She attempted to push the disappointment from her mind and put a smile on her face. She picked up her guitar and started to walk around the humongous school toward the front of the building.

* * *

 

_**It looks like Pyrrha might get a different introduction to Jaune than we may be used to. Who else might get introduced in the next time? Who knows? I don't even think I know :)** _   
_**Next Chapter: Miló and Akoúo̱** _   
_**As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome.** _   
_**Until next time!** _


	2. Miló and Akoúo̱

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter in 2.5 hours at 2 in the morning. Hooray for boredom!  
> So, this chapter frustrated me a bit because I couldn't upload it for two days because my internet decided to die on me. YAY!  
> Anyways, I am in no way affiliated with Rooster Teeth, RWBY, or any music I mention or make these characters play.

Yang Xiao Long didn’t want to wake up. She would have given anything to avoid the consciousness that was swimming its way back into her head. It tickled when it first tapped her awake, but the light tickling was gradually intensified into a dull rapping like a fist on a door, and it finally evolved into a painful pounding that threatened to force her to scream. She would have screamed, too, but her state left her hearing on par with a cat so every miniscule sound sounded like a radio on full blast.

After what felt like an eternity of praying for sleep to once again enrapture her, Yang finally gave up and decided to try and wake up completely. It was quite the struggle because her eyes were extremely sensitive to light, and there was an open window shining the unrestricted sun directly in the room. The blond quickly turned over and buried her face in the stuffed animal next to her to avoid the brightness.

Then, something hit Yang. She doesn’t own a stuffed animal, leastways, not one she brought to Beacon with her. Getting curious, Yang lift her head and squinted her eyes as she looked around her room. It was definitely a Beacon dorm room, the carpet and wall colors were a dead giveaway. However, the bed was in a different position than in her room; it was on the wall opposite the window to let the sun hit it while Yang’s would have been crammed in the corner of the window-wall to avoid such UV-rays. _Ah, fuck,_ Yang thought. _What did I do last night?_ Yang put her arms out in front of her the push herself up, but her left hand bumped into something that made her pause: another person’s naked back. _More importantly, **who** did I do last night?_

Yang quickly and quietly slid out of the person’s bed and onto the floor, at which point she realized she was nearly completely nude. The only clothes she still had were her Achieve Men panties. Yang sighed a sigh of relief; she didn’t want to have lost her favorite pair of panties. She scanned the floor for the rest of her clothes and found the majority of the in a clump at the floor of the bed. _I must have been having a good time, these thing came of fast._ In the deep recesses of her mind, her brain must have made a pun, because Yang quietly giggled to herself. Off to her side, the mystery person shifted and sounded like they were waking up.

Suddenly remembering the awkward situation she was presented with, Yang started to get dressed as fast as she could. After putting everything else on, she finished by pulling her low-cut yellow top. Just as she was about to slip out, she felt something in her shirt that wasn’t supposed to be there. She reached down her top and pulled out a silk, black bow.

It was at that moment that Yang’s mystery lover decided to roll over in her sleep, frightening Yang something fearful. Seeing the girl’s slender face made a haze of memories come flooding back into Yang’s head. She remembered being at a party of some kind. Rock music was playing; but it wasn’t heavy enough for Yang’s taste. Speaking of taste, Yang recalled trying multiple new types of whiskey that evening but none quite to her liking, so stuck she stuck with her usual Jack & Coke (extra strong). The next thing she remembered was pouring a drink for the mystery girl who insisted she make it as strong as her own. Flashing forward, Yang remembered making out with the girl in someone’s room. The girl was a biter, too. Yang felt her bottom lip with her tongue and found it a bit swollen. The last thing Yang recalled was the girl leading her by the hand back to her room on the other side of the campus and into her bed.

_Well,_ she thought, _this will be one to tell Neptune about_. She smiled when she envisioned the Mistralite’s face reddening when she regaled him with a few explicit, though embellished, details. _I might even tell Ruby all about_ …

Suddenly, Yang remembered her responsibilities. She was supposed to meet Ruby when she arrived at Beacon today. Yang bolted over to the window and looked outside at the front of the school. The shuttle was just pulling in front of the main building. Ruby was already here!

“FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!” Yang screamed as she dashed out of the mystery girl’s room and she slammed the door hard behind her.

As the door was about to slam, Blake Belladonna cracked her eyes open and only saw a yellow streak flee from her dorm room.

It took Pyrrha what felt like an eternity the walk around to the front of the school. _You’d think with a school as large as this, they’d have more than two exits in their main building._ Doing her best not to be a downer on her first day, Pyrrha decided to take in the scenery whilst on her forced trek to the front entrance. On her right was merely the gigantic wall of the Beacon Academy of Music, but on her left was a beautiful, lush garden filled with more kind of flowers than Pyrrha could ever hope to memorize. Multiple hues of all sorts of colors filled the green landscape before her: deep reds, pale yellows, blinding whites, dazzling purples, and other colors she wouldn’t know where to begin in describing them.

She continued to be amazed as she looked at the garden from afar when her eyes wandered over to a section apparently dedicated entirely to sculpture and other three-dimensional art. Some were very traditional with a Greek style depicting the ideal human figure while others decided to flip tradition on its head and make something out of bronze that could only be described as a weeping willow tree with skeletons carved into the trunk. The tree unsettled Pyrrha to some degree, but she didn’t want to admit it to herself.

Pyrrha soon rounded to corner to where the front entrance was. Sad to have left all the beauty of the gardens but eager to blend in with a crowd of new students just like her, she started to walk faster. She picked up her pace as she saw a shuttle pulling up to the doors. Pyrrha watched as the first of her new classmates practically leaped from the bus, no doubt as excited she was to be at the prestigious school. She kept her eyes fixed on the blond boy as he sped away from the bus…

And proceeded to violently vomit into a trash can.

Pyrrha was in complete shock. This was the last thing she expected to see today. She was luck that she didn’t see the boy’s explicit expelling of his stomach contents; she didn’t that she would have been able to witness that without following suit. Pyrrha might have found the whole scene somewhat funny if it wasn’t for the boy’s continued dry-heaving to the point of it sounding like he was about to chucking up his internal organs. It was when the rest of the shuttle’s patrons paid him no mind and walked by him like nothing was remotely wrong that she began to pity the boy. She thought it was strange that she had so many emotions toward a stranger within such a short span of time and in that rapid of a succession.

Pyrrha began an internal debate with herself. Should she go and help the poor boy who doesn’t seem to be starting on the right foot. Her first argument was that she should because it was the kind thing to do, and that’s who she was: a kind person. But, her counterargument was that she should leave him alone because there is a chance that people could see and recognize her, and she wanted to stay under the radar for as long as humanly possible. In the end, the goodness won out and Pyrrha decided to go see if the boy was okay. As she began to walk towards her downed classmate, her mind began to mess with her. _What if you trip over your own feet and eat shit on the pavement? What if you try to speak and you speak gibberish? What if he makes a scene and tells you off? What will you do?_ Those thoughts caused Pyrrha to slow her pace gradually until she was at a halt in the middle of the courtyard. Just him and her, alone, separated by a mere twenty feet.

The boy let his legs collapse out from under him and twisted as he fell so he was sitting with his back leaning against the trash can. And he was looking right at her. Right in her eyes. She stopped breathing for a moment; she heard so little sound that a tumbleweed must have been rumbling past her just out of eyesight.

After what seemed like another eternity, Pyrrha tried to speak. “Um, hello,” she greeted with the warmest smile she could muster.

Before Jaune could respond to the beautiful redhead before him, another voice broke the silence. “Jaune!” Ruby’s voice called out. Jaune turned his head to see the petite girl in red and black hopped of the shuttle with what seemed like a small arsenal of bags. He recognized one of them as his. He also recognized Crocea Mors in her left hand. He silently thanked the universe for letting someone like Ruby exist who would do such a nice thing.

Jaune turned back to the girl he just shared a moment (of what he wasn’t sure) with, but she wasn’t there. She had completely disappeared. That meant one of two things: the girl was unbelievably fast and should try out to be a ninja, or he had envisioned the whole thing and she was never there to begin with.

“Hey, Ruby,” Jaune said as she set his stuff down next him, “did you see a girl right over there as you got off the bus?”

“A girl?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah, a girl,” Jaune confirmed. “Tall, redhead. She was pretty hot.”

Ruby stared down at the ground as though it helped focus her short-term memory. After a moment, she replied, “No, I don’t think I did. Sorry, buddy. Why? Did you recognize her or something?”

“No,” Jaune shrugged, I had never seen her face before in my life. Weird, huh?”

Out of the other two students’ eyesight, Pyrrha hid around the other side of the shuttle. She heard them talk about her, if the small girl had seen her before she fled and if the boy knew who she was. Her heart soared to new heights as she heard the boy say, “I had never seen her face before in my life. Weird, huh”

_Finally!_ Pyrrha cheered in her head, _a place where not everybody already knows who I am! I’m so happy I could kiss that boy right now!_ It was then that she stopped herself. She just received a gift from above in that clueless boy; she didn’t need to ruin it all by freaking him out by planting one on his lips out of nowhere. _I just need to go up and talk to him. I might finally have a real friend here, so don’t screw it up,_ she told herself. She peaked her head out from behind the shuttle to see the boy and girl still there. _Maybe I’ll talk to him when he’s alone, I have less of a chance of screwing up when I only have to talk to one person honestly._

Ruby extended a hand for Jaune to use in getting up, a hand which he graciously accepted. “Thanks, Ruby,” he said. “I don’t know what I would have done if I lost Crocea Mors.”

“Cried?” Ruby joked.

The two of them shared a laugh before Jaune agreed. “Yeah, probably.”

“Speaking of which,” Ruby continued, “I saw those words on your guitar case. How do you say it? Crocky More”

“Crocea Mors,” Jaune corrected with a smile. “It the name of the guitar inside.” He set the case on the ground and opened it gingerly like it was able to be broken by the slightest breeze. Inside, laying on a cushiony silk interior, was an acoustic six-string guitar with a snow white base. Painted onto the base was a design of two gold moons that took up the entire face. At the bottom of the guitar’s face was a red-brown stain that looked like dried blood spattered around the rim.

Ruby pointed at the stain and asked, “What’s this reddish thing right here? Is that real blood?”

Jaune nodded. “Yes, it is,” he confirmed. “It’s an interesting story, you see…”

“RUBY!” a voice called from far away. Both Jaune and Ruby looked up and saw a blond lady with a low-cut yellow top running in their direction. Jaune took note of just how low-cut her top really was and continued to study it as he watched her run toward them in what her perceived to be a form of natural slow motion.

“Yang!” Ruby called back as she ran toward the blond lady. The smaller girl lunged at her and embraced her in what seemed like an air-constricting bear hug. The blond girl responded with a vice-like embrace of her own until both girls had to let go because the other’s hug was beginning to hurt.

“Jaune,” Ruby said, “this is my big sister, Yang Xiao Long,” she motioned to the blond bombshell. “Yang, this is my new friend, Jaune.”

Jaune smiled despite his still feeling sickly and bowed his head, resulting in him stumbling forward and landing on his knees at Yang’s feet. Defeated by his own clumsiness, Jaune could hardly moan out, “Pleasure to meet you,” as he picked himself back up.

Yang motioned to the blond boy. “What’s up with this guy?” she asked as if he wasn’t even there.

“Oh, he just vomited as soon as he got off the shuttle,” Ruby explained nonchalantly. “By the way,” Ruby said to Jaune, “why did you start puking so fast, Jaune?”

“Uh,” Jaune was caught off guard. He couldn’t very well tell the two of the girl he just met that he throws up when he embarrassed. Quickly doing a Google search of his brain looking for a plausible reason for his spontaneous puking, he quickly blurted out, “Sorry, I tend to get pretty motion-sick sometimes.” He rubbed the back of his head and smiled, hoping it would make him seem more harmless.

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Yang commented with a sneer. “No offence, but I would hate to go on tour with you, buddy. You’d be hanging out the window for more than half the trip, and I don’t think staring at your ass would be a very good way to pass the time.”

“Yang, that’s a little rude, don’t you think?” Ruby chastised. Yang shrugged. “Sorry about my sister, Jaune, she has a tendency to not think before she speaks.” Jaune pardoned her with a dismissive, “it’s fine.” Ruby then got an idea. “Hey, Jaune, my sister is going to show me around the school, like the dorms and stuff, do you wanna tag along? Could be fun.”

Jaune looked at Ruby and her cute, sincere face, then he looked over at Yang’s sexy figure and disapproving look in her eyes, almost warning him not to accept. After glancing back and forth between the two sisters, Jaune decided, “No thanks, Ruby. You and Yang go have fun with stuff. I’m still not feeling so hot after… y’know, so I’m gonna sit here for a minute until I feel better.”

Ruby raised an eyebrow. “You sure, Jaune?” she questioned.

Jaune took one last look at Yang before replying, “Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll catch up with you at orientation this afternoon.” He waved the two off as they turned to head into the main building.

Just before they left his earshot, he heard Yang asked her little sister, “So, you don’t like that Vomit Boy, do you?”

Vomit Boy. There it was. He hadn’t been at Beacon for an hour and he already had a deprecating nickname for someone to call him. It crushed any and all confidence he had left in his system and Jaune decided to crumple back to the ground in a sitting position with Crocea Mors’s case and his backpack next to him.

As if the universe wanted to add insult to injury, the shuttle behind him started up again, blowing a thick cloud of smoke that trailed over to Jaune and made him cough violently, which scratched his through more than his vomit session had.

As the smoke cleared and Jaune ceased his coughing fit, he hung his head as low as he could in his position and considered shedding a tear. And he would have, too, if it weren’t for the sound of another person coughing behind him. Jaune sprang up and whirled around and watched the shuttle’s smoke dissipate.

On the other side of the thick carbon monoxide vapor was the beautiful redhead woman he saw earlier.

* * *

 

**_I had to resist the urge at the "tumbleweed" bit not to write "Tumble-Zwei" (Thumbs up if you saw that RWBY Chibi episode!). Also, the natural slow-motion was a bit of a reference to Red vs Blue Season 13. "If it's epic enough, life finds a way!"_ **   
**_As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome._ **   
**_Until next time!_ **


	3. Getting Ready to Set Sail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say that I am so sorry for not working on this story for so long! In between college, personal life, and being sicker than a dog has prevented me from writing anything in a cohesive way. I had lost so much motivation for writing over the past couple of months, but when going through my emails about a week ago, I found a comment from LeliMeow on my second chapter, and I don't know what it was, but the comment just made me want to write again, So, after being sick (again) for for another week and working until 3 in the morning... Here you guys go! anyone who is reading this, you all have LeliMeow to thank for this chapter. Enjoy!

Jaune and Pyrrha stared at each other for what must have felt like an eternity of eternities. Pyrrha kept a warm smile on her lips while her inner self raged at herself and the shuttle for causing her to be discovered in this manner. Jaune wore his heart on his sleeve because the confused and dumbfounded look on his face was an exact replica of what he was thinking. The two of them kept perfect eye contact the whole time they looked at one another: Pyrrha out of politeness, Jaune out of shock and fear.

_Who? What? How? When? Why?_ was the complete extent of Jaune’s thought process for a few moments.

Pyrrha had a little more coherent inner monologue, _Calm down, Pyrrha. He’s just another person. A person who has no idea that you’re famous. The first person in ages who you can create a genuine first impression on. DON”T SCREW THIS UP!_

After a lengthy debate with her feet, Pyrrha moved and slowly approached Jaune.  She kept reminding herself not to sound too eager or excited because this boy looked like he might have spooked extremely easily. Keeping one hand on her guitar case and the other on her lucky red skirt, she cleared her throat. “Excuse me,” she barely managed to get out, “but I saw you were having some trouble down there.” She gestured to the trash can and Jaune’s belongings behind him. “I was wondering if you would like some help with anything.”

Jaune remained silent. His brain was too busy processing his thoughts to focus on words. The many topics fighting for prominence in his head eventually quieted down and his mouth decided to respond with, “How long were you behind that shuttle?”

Pyrrha went red in the face, nearly as red as her hair (Jaune made the comment in his head). Wanting to get passed her embarrassment, Pyrrha replied, “I was back there for a little bit. I heard your conversation with that other girl, the short one.” She gestured a small height with her hand to further drive the point home she was referring to Ruby. “I’m sorry for eavesdropping. I ducked behind the shuttle when I saw her bolt out of it to see how you were doing. I was hoping to avoid an awkward situation… like this one.”

Then, Jaune realized something: he had the power to diffuse this situation! He could ease this girl’s embarrassment, as well as his own. All he had to do was say the right thing here. He did a quick speed run through his brain, picking out the right words to use and he came out with, “Well, I’m glad it was you behind the bus. I could have been stuck with a guy in a strapless dress, and no one wants to see that.” He cracked a warm smile to insinuate that he was trying to be nice.

Jaune’s response caught the red-headed prodigy off guard, and the first image that popped into her head was that of Jaune in a snow-white strapless dress with a pair of tennis shoes. The absurdity of it made Pyrrha giggle before bursting out into a full belt of laughter. When she regained her composure a moment later, she said, “I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.” The air was much less tense now, and Pyrrha thought it was a good idea to take a chance and introduce herself. She stepped up the blonde boy and said, “I’m Pyrrha Nikos. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She let go of her lucky skirt and extended her hand.

Jaune raised his hand to shake hers, but he stopped midway when he realized his hand was very sweaty. He took a second to dry it off on the right leg of his jeans before seizing Pyrrha’s hand with his and saying, “Pleasure to meet you, Pyrrha Nikos. My name is Jaune Arc.” He let go of their hand shake and stepped back to his belongings. He slung the book bag over his right shoulder and picked up Crocea Mors in his left. The two then began to walk toward the front doors.

“Jaune Arc,” Pyrrha repeated to try the name out herself. She liked the way it sounded; the soft _J_ and the abrupt ending of _Arc_ stood out to her for some reason. “Jaune Arc,” she said again, “I like that name. I sounds important.”

“Yepyep,” Jaune agreed with a grin, preparing to roll out his signature line he’d been practicing in the bathroom mirror for the last three weeks. “Jaune Arc, short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. Ladies love it.”

Pyrrha raised a skeptic eyebrow. “Do they now?”

Jaune did his best to play off the fact that the line he’s been working on for so long fell about E flat. “If I’m lucky, they will,” he joked. Thinking on his feet, he decided to slide the subject away from him. “I like your name, too. Pyrrha Nikos. Sounds strong, like you might be a warrior of some sort, slaying monsters or something.”

Pyrrha laughed at the thought. “I don’t think I’d do too well with a sword in my hands.” She lifted up her guitar as an example. “The only weapon I think I can wield is this, and I think if I harmed things with my music, that wouldn’t be a very good thing.”

They approached the front doors of Beacon, and Jaune (being the gentlemen his sisters beat him into being) opened the door for his new friend as they went inside. The first thing they saw upon entering this legendary school of music talent and artistic expression was… the front desk. An empty front desk.

Pyrrha looked a Jaune with a confused look on her face. Jaune shrugged. “Maybe the secretary is out for lunch or something,” he offered.

“But it’s around 9:30 in the morning,” Pyrrha replied.

“Oh,” Jaune’s shoulders slumped, “right.” The two stepped up to the empty workstation to see if there was indication of what to do next. All Jaune seemed to find was a spotless workstation with every little thing on it being in such organized condition that you couldn’t make it look better if you used a ruler. There wasn’t even a speck of dust across the entirety of the desk top. Jaune wondered how that was even possible.

Pyrrha had a little bit more luck. She looked around the rest of the front room and found a bulletin board back over near the front doors. She decided to look for some sort of schedule for new students or something along those lines. There were twenty-some-odd posters and flyers covering the board and Pyrrha attempted to flip through them all to find what she needed. Some of the Flyers she saw had topics like: _Don’t Do Drugs: Use Your Mouth to Play an Instrument!_ or… _Sign this petition to get such-and-such music to be the prominent genre encouraged at Beacon!_ or… _Is Musical Porn a Thing? Come and find out at this stage show._ Pyrrha eventually found a poster for incoming students dated for today. “Hey, Jaune,” she called over to the blonde boy, “come check this out.” Jaune did so and came over to look at the poster. “Look at this, all new students are to report to the auditorium at the west end of the school.” _That’s where I was trying to get in,_ she thought to herself.

Jane continued reading. “It looks like orientation is set to start at 9:15.”

Pyrrha’s eyes went wide. “9:15?” she exclaimed. Jaune nodded. “We’re already twenty minutes late!”

Jaune pulled out his scroll and verified the time. “Oh, shit!”

Jaune and Pyrrha jogged down the various corridors of the academy, making their way to the auditorium. A few times Pyrrha seemed to start to pull ahead of Jaune, threatening to leave him behind, but somehow he always caught up to her. Jaune made multiple mental notes that he would have to study a map of this place constantly if he was going to have a chance of navigating the school. He thought the main building itself was almost comically large. It didn’t seem logical to have a building with this many corridors and almost no directions. It was not long into their journey that the young man had forgotten exactly how to get to the auditorium, so he quietly decided to stay close behind Pyrrha and just follow her and hope that she still knew where she was going. The guitarist did his damnedest to keep his eyes up and forward for the duration of their journey, but he would be an outright liar if he didn’t admit to himself that he stole a few glances at his new friend’s lower figure clad in a vibrant red and gold skirt once or twice. The last time he did so, Jaune could swear that Pyrrha noticed the heat of his stare, causing her to slow down for half of a second before pushing further forward again.

They finally rounded a corner and came to an open circular area with a few tables and lounge chairs, probably a waiting room of some sort or another. At the back of the area were two sets of double doors with the words **Beacon Auditorium** above them. The doors were closed, but there were definitely sounds coming from the other the other side. A little out of breath, Jaune flashed a smile to Pyrrha as he approached the door and pushed on it.

The doors didn’t budge.

Immediately, Jaune’s heart sank. “God damn it,” He breathed. He looked back at Pyrrha. “Looks like it’s locked,” he confessed. He visibly noticed Pyrrha’s face fall. Not want to see his new friend sad, he quickly offered, “I guess we can put out ears to the door and try to hear through that. Who knows? It might work.” Jaune shifted over to the other door and gestured to the place where he’d just been, as if giving her an invitation to join him in listen through doors.

The motion earned him an amused smile from the redhead, which caused his ego to go just a bit further. Jaune set Crocea Mors on a nearby lounge chair, stepped up to the door, and leaned against it with his left ear pressed to the metal… and the door opened fully with a hard swing. The door’s opening caused the young Arc to fall off of his balance and send him crashing into the auditorium floor with a loud and echoing thud. Jaune narrowly avoided smacking his head too hard on the cold tile floor (although his face did take a small but painful bump) by putting his hands out in front of him, but he could stop himself from letting out a semi-high pitched scream as it happened.

The entire auditorium went silent. Whoever was doing the speaking was now silent, intently staring at the young klutz along with the rest of the students in attendance. He couldn’t make up his mind on whether or not to jump back to his feet or just allow the moment to continue with him face down on the floor. His body eventually overrode his brain’s functions and compromised by having him slowly drag himself up to his knees and stare into the open auditorium. The heat of everyone’s stares and a few quiet giggle from the masses made Jaune’s embarrassment spike and he could feel his face reddening.

In what seemed like rare moment of luck in Jaune’s favor, the man who had previously been talking presently resumed his speech, taking the vast majority of everyone’s attention off of the young man. Jaune’s body temperature began to cool back down, but a sudden hand on his shoulder from behind made it raise again and caused him to jump to his feet, thankfully with alerting too many on the auditorium’s attendees. Jaune turned around to see Pyrrha with a look on her face that Jaune could only describe as a mixture of comfort and pity.

However, Pyrrha’s visage changed quickly enough to give someone whiplash into an expression of worry with a slight hint of disgust. She to a step back from Jaune and began to seemingly fiddle with her skirt while looking straight at the floor. The action left the young blonde stunned. Why was she unable to look at him? What had he done now? Jaune’s began to fill with an uncountable number of curses and swears while he just stared awkwardly at the top of Pyrrha’s head, during which he took the time to subconsciously wonder whether or not the fiery red color of her hair was its genuine hue.

Jaune’s light pondering came to a halt when he snapped back to reality, caused by a sharp pain in the middle of his face. The Arc boy saw Pyrrha looking back at him with her hand pressed up against his face. For a split second, Jaune had thought she’d punched him square in the nose, but the sensation of a soft cloth caressing his nose. He then saw that it was a bright red cloth of some sorts being held to his nose and that some of it was discoloured with a darker red. In hindsight, the amount of time it took Jaune to realize that Pyrrha was tending to a bloody nose he’d suffered from his face plant on the auditorium floor made the young man feel utterly stupid, but at the time he felt genuinely smart for putting the pieces together.

He took the cloth from his friend and continually pressed it to his face to keep any more blood from running down his face (he could tell that a significant amount had already found its way into his mouth. “Thanks, Pyrrha,” he said with a nasal and cautious voice. He didn’t want to accidentally stimulate his now oversensitive nose with the vibration of his voice and in turn sneeze blood over the pretty redhead before him.

“It was no big deal,” Pyrrha replied with a warm smile. “I really hate the sight of running blood, so it was the least I could do.” She walked back into the other room and brought Crocea Mors back into Jaune’s possession. “Wouldn’t want you to forget this, now would we?” Pyrrha instantly regretted saying the “we” and hoped that Jaune wouldn’t read too much into it.

Luckily enough for her, Jaune’s mind began to ponder something else: where did she get the cloth for his nose from? She didn’t seem to have and pockets on her skirt or carry a purse. He figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. “Hey, Pyrrha, where’s this cloth come from? Do you just randomly carry bloody-nose hankies in your waistband?” he joked.

Pyrrha immediately clammed up and put her hands behind her back. “Oh! Um, well, I uh… I…” She did everything she could to try and come up with a plausible story on the spot but nothing with working.

It was just then that the man who had been addressing the new students for the past several minutes raised his voice that seemed almost specifically designed for getting the attention of Jaune and Pyrrha. “So,” he boomed while still holding a calm tone, “because of the damage to the dorms from over the last weekend, all new students along with a few current ones will have to sleep here in the great hall or in the library on the bottom floor of the building. If the luggage you sent in earlier does not have a sleeping bag or other essential bed materials, they will be provided for you. All of your dorms should be back in normal condition by the end of the week, but for now, we ask that you all make do hopefully find yourselves a landing strategy… that is, finding your footing around here and acclimating to your surroundings. Who knows this may be a blessing in disguise for some of you when choosing your bands next month. Also, some final notes before I let you all go off to make friends and enemies. For those who have forgotten, dinner will be openly served from six to nine every evening, but there is a late night lounge on the top floor that is open every once in a while when it supervisor Professor Qrow is around. Also, while not mandatory, we ask that all of you sign in and out at the front gate when entering and leaving campus grounds.”

The man took a pause and looked down, allowing his snow white hair to obscure his eyes. He then looked back up, and his bangs returned to their previous state almost magically well. “That seems to be everything I had to say. So, enjoy your tenure at the Beacon Academy of Music and remember: Music is will always be there to change the world as long as we never stop moving forward.” He bowed his head slightly. “Good luck.”

Jaune had been so utterly enraptured by the sound of the white hair man’s voice that he didn’t notice that Pyrrha had tapped him on the shoulder the first time, or the second time. The third time was the charm as the blonde boy came to his senses and looked at her. It was also here that Jaune realized that most of the crowd which seemed to be there only moments ago had left the auditorium through a set of side doors he had not seen before.

“Are you okay, Jaune?” Pyrrha asked. The question sounded so familiar in her voice that he assumed that she’d already asked him that multiple times.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Jaune replied. “I was just thinking about something really hard.” He tried to pass his obliviousness of as a joke and hoped Pyrrha would just go with that.

Internally, Pyrrha could tell that Jaune was completely full of it. She knew that he had been entranced by the white hair man; she had been too. She just came out of it before he had but, willing to indulge her friend, she decided to just go with it. Unfortunately, her brain did not think about her next few words too carefully. “Oh, yeah? You wouldn’t happen to have been thinking about me, now would you?” she mentally facepalmed as both of them turned into varying shades of embarrassed pink. “I mean,” she tried, “the thing, th-the thing… thinking a-about…thing…” her mouth eventually just quit and she let out a major sigh of defeat. Attempting to reboot their conversation, she simply asked, “You want to just go get our luggage from the offices?”

* * *

 

Yang and Ruby stood over toward the side doors of the auditorium, just watching Jaune and Pyrrha’s interaction. Yang chuckled to herself. “My god,” she said, “you can’t write how awkwardly bad those too are with each other.”

Ruby gave a giggle. “You can say that again.”

Yang continued, “Those two should just fuck and get it over with, y’know? It’s so obvious she want him I’m surprised she hasn’t jumped his bones already.”

“Gross, sis!” Ruby exclaimed while still blushing slightly. “Besides, I’m pretty sure they just met.”

“Never stopped me before,” Yang shrugged. ”No better way to ease tension between two people than seeing each other naked.” She turned to her little sister and said, “In any case, let’s go get your luggage from the front office. Looks like I’m going to be sleeping in the library with you since I was part the party that damaged the dorms.” The two sisters began to leave the auditorium, but just before they left, Yang looked back at the beautiful redhead and commented, “I could have sworn that I saw her face on the news for something.”

* * *

 

_**Voila! I know these chapters are not as long as other stories, but I can't bring myself to write extremely long chapters for something and then rather short chapters later on. I don't think it's fair to those who are reading to expect something that I know I can't deliver.** _

_**In any case, it looks like Jaune and Pyrrha are off to a good start, and there first week seems to hold any number of possibilities in its time frame. Who will we see next? What is next for our characters? Who knows? I don't even think I know :)** _

_**As always, comments and constructive criticism are welcome.  
Until next time!** _


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